I ran various FreeBSD servers in a previous life (job), running a WAP server for 1.4 million cell users on 4.5 and some departmental web services and reporting on 5-7. I think we were on 7.0 when we were assimilated by the Borg (AT&T), after which our family relocated, became a house husband, defected to Ubuntu and after several years. I miss FreeBSD and have a few questions getting started...

Over the last several months, I've played with PcBSD and FreeBSD 9 as a later beta and RC1 and was wondering:

- with 9, there doesn't seem to be the usual X configurator. Was this removed because of PcBSD?

- is it there a big difference between 8.x an 9?

- is the X configurator still in the 8.x installer?

I guess that is a sort of lame set of questions and i couldn't even search like normal, because my touchpad running Android wouldn't do the search drop down... I hope no one is too offended. The reason I'm not going with PcBSD is it had didn't have my monitor and the defaults didn't work well. I didn't have any success configuring it myself. There was a link to request help, but it didn't seem to work. Also, they use a different package system, as I recall. Anyhow, it just didn't feel the same.

with 9, there doesn't seem to be the usual X configurator. Was this removed because of PcBSD?

There never was an X-based configuration tool and there cannot be since all Xorg libraries are third-party applications. PCBSD simply provides FreeBSD along with a complete Xorg environment and set of applications already installed and configured for you.
You must be thinking of one of the numerous live systems that come and go every now and then. Or perhaps you're talking about sysinstall? It has been replaced with bsdinstall and is being phased out.

- with 9, there doesn't seem to be the usual X configurator. Was this removed because of PcBSD?

Are you talking about the need to generate an xorg.conf file using

Code:

Xorg -configure

Most systems now will probe the hardware and the result mostly works. If you need to customize your settings an xorg.conf, or more recently an xorg.conf.d directory may be needed. You should be able to access the FreeBSD Handbook on xorg configuration

I mean, in older versions, after the main install and before the account and group set ups, it would set up the mouse and monitor and configure X for you. Then you just had to turn on XDM (again, these are 6ish year old memories)? The two times I experimented with 9, it didn't even install X. I spent a lot of time trying to get it up with limited success.

I mean, in older versions, after the main install and before the account and group set ups, it would set up the mouse and monitor and configure X for you. Then you just had to turn on XDM (again, these are 6ish year old memories)? The two times I experimented with 9, it didn't even install X. I spent a lot of time trying to get it up with limited success.

In those days, a failure to configure X Window resulted in a failed install, that is why the X configuration has been eliminated from the installation process since quite some time.

You now have to install X from packages or ports after the install.

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You don't need to be a genius to debug a pf.conf firewall ruleset, you just need the guts to run tcpdump

In those days, a failure to configure X Window resulted in a failed install, that is why the X configuration has been eliminated from the installation process since quite some time.

You now have to install X from packages or ports after the install.

That's what I needed! Found all the stuff in the links listed, but the install was not behaving like I remembered and I was wondering what I was doing wrong!

I had also found the release notes... but a lot of that is Greek to me and a have a (n older) CompSci background. I would think that if they were going through trouble of maintaining two production releases, they'd have a brief digest or comparison to help weight the coin I'm mentally flipping . 9 is obviously the future, but is it of interest to me, atm, if I'm just looking for a server Like, wasn't 5.x or 6 a real turd and the next x.0 was the version to have? (and I'm trying to be funny, there... as I recall, I struggled a lot with 5.4 and finally some told me I needed to be on 6.0, which I was avoiding because of the .0. Then all of a sudden, the consensus was there was a design flaw in the 5.x architecture that they had backed out of on 6)

Your best bet may be to follow the instructions in the hand book link in the previous post. There are several pitfalls in FreeBSD (hal, dbus, possible failure of hardware probing) that are addressed in the handbook and rather than going back in forth in the forum on these possibilities it would be best to start there (and a better learning experience for you). If you get stuck or do not understand portions of the handbook feel free to post back. The other tidbit is that the FreeBSD community now has their own forum. That forum is much more active in regards to FreeBSD than this one.

Looks like I got an unwarrented promotion - Spam Deminer to VPN cryptographer with my 330th post. I have to confess, I do not know squat about VPN or cryptography.